Photographing Christmas Morning

So not everyone has the equipment or know how to light their Christmas morning photos to look their best. They own a point and shoot or whatever they may have and capture the moment as it happens. With family photos capturing the moment is the most important thing. Once you are sure you can do that achieving optimal quality comes next. For our Christmas morning photos I followed the Strobist plan for lighting Christmas morning.


I had the lights setup a couple days in advance and practices shots from all over the room to get them right. Photos of them walking into the living area, opening, moving around, and just about everything in between. The setup is pretty simple. 2 Canon 580EX II's triggered by Pocketwizard plus ii's. Shot with a Canon 7D with the Canon 24-70L. They were setup on two light stands about 5 feet of the ground pointed up at the ceiling. Each light was in the perpendicular corner to the tree. The farthest light away was angeled at mid ceiling and the light closest to the tree was straight up. Below are some of the results...